Film a much-lauded Saudi entry by director Haifaa Al Mansour

It’s a strange irony that the very first film to be completely shot in Saudi Arabia is also the first Saudi film to be made by a woman, so while necessity may be the mother of invention, oppression is the mother of expression.

Novice director Haifaa Al Mansour brings a veteran touch to delicate subject matter in this character-driven drama that has a Lassie-Come-Home feel, despite being set in the middle of Riyadh, where our young heroine is facing a significant dilemma.

Wadjda (Waad Mohammed) wants to beat her neighbour at a bike race. The only problem is she doesn’t own a bike, nor can she ride one, because in Saudi girls aren’t supposed to straddle a two-wheeler and pedal around town like Audrey Hepburn.

They have to cover their hair and face in order to be considered devout. They have to be invisible.

Al Mansour doesn’t veil the issues. She lets them stand naked in the light of day as they would appear to anyone living in working-class Riyadh. Girls have to move out of the sight of all men.

“If you can see a man, he can see you,” says one of Wadjda’s schoolmates as she scurries into the shadows.

Wadjda waves off all the rules and just keeps on her merry way, earning money on the side making bracelets for her friends, looking to save enough cash to buy that beautiful green bike at the local store.

Wadjda

Yet, when her entrepreneurship comes to the attention of the strict school principal, Wadjda has to find a new way to make her dream come true. Her prayers are answered in the form of a prayer competition. The kid who can recite the religious verses with the most accuracy and passion wins a load of loot. It’s enough to buy the object of her desire, ensuring the once-apathetic Wadjda becomes a star pupil.

The setup is pure schmaltz, and the style lacks any defining cultural markers to speak of, largely feeling like something that could have been shot for television.

In so many respects, the film is a testament to the forces of globalization, and how an American TV style has essentially been adapted — much like English — as the universal visual tongue.

The upside is the generic style allows the particular elements of difference within the story to shine through even brighter, and those differences are blinding.

The idea that a kid wouldn’t be allowed to ride a bike, just because she’s a girl, seems even more absurd when the world she lives in looks so much like ours: They play video games, go to school, enjoy meals with their families.

Reem Abdullah as Mother, left, and Waad Mohammed as Wadjda

Yet, at the same time Wadjda is dreaming about a new bike, her mother is struggling to cope with the loss of her husband — to another wife, and her 11-year-old classmates show up at school with pictures of their arranged weddings to older men.

Again, Al Al Mansour doesn’t beat around the bush. She puts the ambient sexism front and centre, but she always does it through character. Wadjda’s quest for a bike is pure rebellion, and probably futile, but she does it anyway.

We love her for it, and so does Al Mansour, who gives Wadjda the hero treatment all the way along. Young lead Waad Mohammed is up to the challenge, and hands in a sincere performance with lots of spunk, but you always feel a sticky hand of sentiment guiding the denouement.

Because the actual details are so startlingly foreign, Wadjda didn’t really need to find its own style. If anything, it needed to make itself as relatable as possible, and Al Mansour finds the international translator through a standard, three-act design.

The real victory is the mere fact that it exists, because like Wadjda riding a bike, Al Mansour directing a film is considered entirely non-traditional. Yet, here she is, riding the bike of a director in plain view, telling the story of one young woman who refused to be invisible. And that’s worth celebrating.